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LOL! Like Wizards of the Coast really gives 2 flyin' flips how long the CD is on some obscure, extremely low population video game. I mean, c'mon! Anyone who has ever played D&D knows that aside from the names of certain things DDO is absolutely NOTHING like D&D! DDO is all about grinding, D&D is about as opposite of that as you can get.

Did you see the press release where Wizards of the Coast warned DDO to have no less than a 1 hour CD on a special key that teleports the player from Eberron to Forgotten Realms? How about the internal memo? How about anything at all aside from people saying that they saw other people saying that they kinda remember that once upon a time a dev might have said something about it? Even a direct link to a dev saying WotC won't let us is still pretty meaningless, as not only is that an easy out, it offers no solid evidence. Yet most of all because it just doesn't make a lick of sense as to why they would even care, especially considering what DDO is... a create your own dungeon destroyer video game where you grind XP for powerups so you can grind even faster the next time.

I came back here because I just noticed something in game, but someone else already beat me to the punch. There's an even faster path to Eveningstar than exiting the guild ship, dropping down to the cave, clicking Eveningstar Cavern, and walking out. Exit the guild ship, or better yet teleporter in Jorasco, run to the mist, click a tavern, click the exit, click return to Eveningstar, and PRESTO! you're there.

Add in the VIP log out/log in method and there are a handful of trivial ways to quickly travel to Forgotten Realms from Eberron. Don't forget, anyone with a handful of UMD and a teleport scroll can instantly teleport almost anywhere in Eberron from anywhere in Forgotten Realms. This whole "Mommy and daddy said so." just doesn't hold water. If WotC were in any way concerned with a CD timer on a key making travel between realms too trivial, they would certainly have a problem with all the other trivial modes of transport. Oh! I just thought of another one! People who have the thingy, bottle of smoke I think, can instantly teleport to Barovia... which I think... I don't have it so I'm not sure... sends you directly to the blood on the vine tavern. It's got merely a 1 minute CD, so from anywhere in DDO you can click the Bottle of Mist and you are 1 click away from standing at the outskirts of Eveningstar. The Bottle of Mist effectively reduces the CD of the key to 1 minute. Naughty, naughty! Mommy and daddy are going to send SSG to bed without dinner.

It doesn't matter how much WotC cares about DDO. They hold the license, they get the say. DDO is also built off 3.5 to begin with. If Mist pot has a 1min CD it's probably because WotC said it was ok to do so. If you really have a problem with that then maybe write in to WotC and ask them instead.

Last edited by askrj1; 01-12-2019 at 12:14 AM.

Very much like my favourite weapon, the quarterstaff, I am a blunt instrument, as are my words.
Thelanis - Striving to be your Swiss Army Knife for DPS, traps and tanking
Eushully/Rog20 Mechanic || Nantekottai/Hamstering to improve tank || Ponoka - Sub

It doesn't matter how much WotC cares about DDO. They hold the license, they get the say. DDO is also built off 3.5 to begin with. If Mist pot has a 1min CD it's probably because WotC said it was ok to do so. If you really have a problem with that then maybe write in to WotC and ask them instead.

You are confused. I've plainly stated that the CD of the key is of no concern to me. However, the idea that Wizards of the Coast would have a problem with the key having a shorter CD is ludicrous. You are welcome to believe what you like, but there is no evidence to support it, not is it in line with reason... as I've pointed out in detail several times already.

I cant really tell

Originally Posted by Chilldude

You are confused. I've plainly stated that the CD of the key is of no concern to me. However, the idea that Wizards of the Coast would have a problem with the key having a shorter CD is ludicrous. You are welcome to believe what you like, but there is no evidence to support it, not is it in line with reason... as I've pointed out in detail several times already.

I mean you could make the argument that cutting the key down to 10s or whatever would cut into their sales for the hall of heroes thing. It's not like SSG doesn't have a history of doing this with other things. The crummy XP in most dungeon packs to sell XP pots/tomes/etc, backloading racial lives to sell otto's, doubling the amount of exp required to hit epic cap and then having the stones to sell a newer, more expensive otto's for it.

Etc...

---

On the other hand, WoTC has been known to be kinda pushy/shovy when it comes to its IP's. Turbine was able to get the key down to 30 minutes (used to be an hour), but SSG has a lot less clout than Turbine did.

So I imagine it went a little something like this:

SSG: "Hey, the key that let's players teleport to the Realms campaign setting from anywhere else, can we lower the cooldown on that from 30 minutes to a few seconds?"

WoTC: "What? No. Campaign travel shouldn't be that easy."

SSG: "Oh, uh...sorry for bothering you."

So at this point they kinda just don't mention stuff like that to WoTC anymore. If they don't say anything, Daddy WoTC can't overrule them.

This could be easily fixed by leaving the current key (easy to get) as it is, but add a platinum key with a shorter cooldown for the PDK Greater Oversword rank favour reward.
That way, you have to do a lot of work for the PDKs before they decide to make your journey a bit easier.

I mean you could make the argument that cutting the key down to 10s or whatever would cut into their sales for the hall of heroes thing. It's not like SSG doesn't have a history of doing this with other things. The crummy XP in most dungeon packs to sell XP pots/tomes/etc, backloading racial lives to sell otto's, doubling the amount of exp required to hit epic cap and then having the stones to sell a newer, more expensive otto's for it.

Etc...

---

On the other hand, WoTC has been known to be kinda pushy/shovy when it comes to its IP's. Turbine was able to get the key down to 30 minutes (used to be an hour), but SSG has a lot less clout than Turbine did.

So I imagine it went a little something like this:

SSG: "Hey, the key that let's players teleport to the Realms campaign setting from anywhere else, can we lower the cooldown on that from 30 minutes to a few seconds?"

WoTC: "What? No. Campaign travel shouldn't be that easy."

SSG: "Oh, uh...sorry for bothering you."

So at this point they kinda just don't mention stuff like that to WoTC anymore. If they don't say anything, Daddy WoTC can't overrule them.

Sure, I agree that's possible. After all, anything is possible. It's also possible WotC begged SSG to completely remove the CD of the key but they refused because it might cut into that whole VIP logout/login realm transport thing. I don't believe that's true, in fact, I don't believe anything in this situation. Some people actually believe in Santa Claus, others believe in Bigfoot, alien abduction, the pyramids were built by aliens and are a great power source. People believe all sorts of things I personally consider whackadoodle. I believe in what makes sense to me and is supported by verifiable evidence. In this particular case, there is no evidence that Wizards of the Coast forbade SSG from lowering the CD of the key beyond 30 minutes. Furthermore, and what is the most important aspect of this entire issue to me, even if WotC did in fact mandate a minimum CD of 30 minutes for the key, I have no reason to believe they are entirely unreasonable people that would not consider any argument to the contrary.

As I've stated from the start, the CD of the key is of no concern to me. Primarily because travel to The Forgotten Realms is already trivial without it. There are several ways to travel from Eberron to The Forgotten Realms in just a few seconds without the key. Were this not the case, then I would surely be more concerned with the CD of the key and I would be a major supporter of any initiative to lower the CD. However, the very existence of these other trivial forms of transport decisively prove 2 things:

The CD of the key is irrelevant and therefore unnecessary. A cool down is used to temper a powerful ability. Since travel to Eveningstar is trivial without the key, the key does not provide players with a powerful ability and therefore needs no balancing.

If WotC were seriously concerned with the CD of the key, they would be seriously concerned about the other trivial means of transport between realms. I might be wrong, but it seems to me the logout/login VIP transport has been around as long as the key, and if not, certainly as long as the key has had a 30 minute CD.

There is nothing to make me believe that, even if WotC did mandate the 30 minute CD, SSG is completely powerless to change it. If WotC retains a tight grip on their intellectual property, then they are likely well aware of the alternate forms of transport and therefore would likely entertain the reasoned and logical argument that the key provides no extraordinary ability and therefore needs no balancing. If they don't know about all the other forms of trivial transport then they aren't very concerned to begin with, the CD could be removed and submitted to them with all the other changes during an update and no one would ever know or care.

What appears most likely to me is that no one really cares. Nor should they, in my opinion. The key will get you to Eveningstar once every 30 minutes with a single click of the mouse. Even though the key doesn't need a CD, rarely is it ever an issue, and quite frankly it really shouldn't ever be an issue. Before you click the key just ask yourself, "Do I need anything from Eberron before I click this?" Even if you forget something after using the key, a teleport scroll makes it a quick round trip that can be completed in under a minute. If this were something that really mattered, I'm quite sure a reasonable accord could be met.

Yeah I agree that if the stated reason is licensing issues, then WotC kinda defanged their own argument by letting the Bottle of Mist do exactly what they said the Key to Eveningstar shouldn't do. Plus Teleport to Eberron works just fine from FR/RL. Heck, I'd be fine if they made it a "Key to the Hall of Heroes" instead, since that is technically a place between realms, and it just TPed you right to the door where you can choose ES/ES Cavern/Thunder Peaks/Wheloon.

As to why I'd need a CD less than 30 mins...because I need to teleport back to Eberron to crunch loot for Cannith essences :P They wont put a damn Cannith deconstruction station in Eveningstar. What happened to cultural exchange between Cormyr and the Coin Lords? And also I just hate having to run up through town because RL spits you out near the cavern...

...
As to why I'd need a CD less than 30 mins...because I need to teleport back to Eberron to crunch loot for Cannith essences :P They wont put a damn Cannith deconstruction station in Eveningstar. What happened to cultural exchange between Cormyr and the Coin Lords? And also I just hate having to run up through town because RL spits you out near the cavern...

Based on this you seem to indicate that you:

1. Fill up your inventory space with gear that can be deconstructed in less then 30 minutes - so does this mean you don't have a lot of space in your pack?
2. Like to empty your pack after every quest.

Would more inventory space be a solution?

This could be why I was not seeing the 30 minutes as an issue. Most times I don't do inventory clean outs until after I'm done questing either for a series or for that play session. I personally would find it tedious to be at the item deconstructor every 30 minutes and think it would be worse to be less then that.

If WotC were seriously concerned with the CD of the key, they would be seriously concerned about the other trivial means of transport between realms.

I mean that's just it. They aren't. But SSG asked about this specific thing. So when it came time to make the cooldown for say, the Barovian transport thing, they just didn't ask because they knew that if they did, WoTC would be anal about it.

SSG learned that with some things, you just don't ask and that's how we got a Barovian teleport of 1 minute. Better to ask forgiveness than for permission and all that.

Or, it's yet another thinly veiled cash grab. As stated, nobody puts that past SSG either. They're very unethical when it comes to their pay schemes, but they've been that way since they went F2P so if you haven't internally justified that by now, it's kinda your own fault for complaining about it.

I mean that's just it. They aren't. But SSG asked about this specific thing. So when it came time to make the cooldown for say, the Barovian transport thing, they just didn't ask because they knew that if they did, WoTC would be anal about it.

SSG learned that with some things, you just don't ask and that's how we got a Barovian teleport of 1 minute. Better to ask forgiveness than for permission and all that.

Or, it's yet another thinly veiled cash grab. As stated, nobody puts that past SSG either. They're very unethical when it comes to their pay schemes, but they've been that way since they went F2P so if you haven't internally justified that by now, it's kinda your own fault for complaining about it.

Yeah, I mean to mention that although I quoted you, I was really more replying to rebut the people who weren't getting it.

Well, keep in mind this is the same company that told us they have this amazing super secret XP tool that determines how much XP a quest should give and it's totally the same one they've always used and it totally takes every factor into account.

XP in quests taking a nosedive around the same time they started selling XP pots, XP tomes and Otto's boxes is totally just a coinkidink.

1. Fill up your inventory space with gear that can be deconstructed in less then 30 minutes - so does this mean you don't have a lot of space in your pack?
2. Like to empty your pack after every quest.

Would more inventory space be a solution?

This could be why I was not seeing the 30 minutes as an issue. Most times I don't do inventory clean outs until after I'm done questing either for a series or for that play session. I personally would find it tedious to be at the item deconstructor every 30 minutes and think it would be worse to be less then that.

I usually have 3 1/2 - 4 open inventory tabs after I crunch out ..but the issue is more that I'll have some tabs already filling up from questing elsewhere before, I'll Key to start running ES quests, then after a couple I'll be full while the key is still on cd.

On a slightly unrelated note, the actual name is of the item is Key to the City - Eveningstar, except, you know, Eveningstar is not a city, a village or town at best.

The format of the item name also suggests they may have had intentions for similarly named items for teleport to future expansion city locations in FR or otherwise, so maybe like say, Key to the City - Sharn, hopefully without an awful timer.

Very much like my favourite weapon, the quarterstaff, I am a blunt instrument, as are my words.
Thelanis - Striving to be your Swiss Army Knife for DPS, traps and tanking
Eushully/Rog20 Mechanic || Nantekottai/Hamstering to improve tank || Ponoka - Sub

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